The Canadian youth and students, the pride of the Canadian working class and people, have contributed tremendously toward the fight against U.S. imperialism in Canada and the world. Over the past decade, hundreds and thousands have been brought into struggle. They have played an invaluable role as instruments of propaganda for progressive ideas and politics and a reservoir of cadres forming the Canadian People’s United Front against U.S. Imperialism. They have persisted in disseminating Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, stood up to the vicious attacks of the comprador state machine, and upheld vigorously the revolutionary banner: It is right to rebel against reactionaries!
Canadian youth and students have been in the fore-front of the struggle against U.S. imperialism in Canada. During the massive revolutionary upsurge against U.S. imperialism taking place during 1960s, the youth were the first to rise up against U.S. aggression in Viet Nam, and against the bourgeois decadent educational system. They fully supported the struggle of the oppressed Afro-American people in the United States.
The youth and students bore the brunt of the attack of the U.S. imperialists and the Canadian monopoly capitalist class which pays special attention to diverting the youth from the revolutionary path and disarming them ideologically and politically in order to win support for themselves. In this the revisionists of the “Communist” Party of Canada were the greatest collaborators. By supporting single issue movements like “peace in Viet Nam”, they refused to provide a concrete programme for fighting the U.S. imperialist domination of our own country. Furthermore, they bear direct responsibility for the trials and tribulations suffered by the youth throughout the sixties on the cultural front. They were the greatest supporters of the “youth culture” peddled by the imperialists which they hailed as progressive and revolutionary. This was the degenerate counter-revolutionary movement which led the youth to drug-taking and suicide. For this reason, the youth in Canada were also in the forefront of the struggle against revisionism.
The Internationalists, which started as a small discussion group at U.B.C. in 1963, rose up amongst the youth precisely because the revisionists refused to provide a programme for the youth and students. The Internationalists led the youth and students out of the impasse in which the imperialists and revisionists attempted to place them, and in a step-wise manner followed the path of bringing the youth and student movement under the leadership of the working class and its Party, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist).
The revolutionary movement begun by the youth and students in the 1960s is bound to inspire the over-all people’s movement. The youth and student movement is deepening and broadening and the people’s movement against U.S. imperialism will rage in full bloom.
The main and the leading force of the anti-imperialist revolution in Canada is the working class (the entire Canadian working class makes up 80% of the population), and the youth and students must come under the leadership of the working class and its Party, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). The youth and students have a vanguard role to play in the Canadian people’s struggle in the sense that they are in the forefront of the revolutionary ranks. It is they who play an important role on the cultural and educational front. The monopoly capitalist class attempts to woo youth in order to stem the tide of revolution and serve the monopoly capitalists. The bourgeoisie addresses the youth in order to mobilise them for fascist counter-revolution or at least to neutralise their basic revolutionary sentiment. The monopoly capitalist class believes in the preparation of public opinion to impose fascism on the people. The attitude of the monopoly capitalist class is as follows: “If we want people to accept what is against their best interests, we must cultivate a consistent and long-term anti-people world view.”
Disaffection among the youth (50% of our population is under the age of 25) with the society and culture which imperialism offers is very widespread. Since the early 1960s there has been a worldwide movement of youth to search for new values, new ideas, a new way of life. Such a mass movement presents a clear threat to the very existence of the exploiting classes: the mass movement of youth and students is a tocsin sounding the proximity of internal insurrection which will put an end, once and for all, to the oppressive rule of the U.S. imperialists and the Canadian monopoly capitalist class.
The basic message of the monopoly capitalist class in Canada to youth and students is simply this: There are problems in the society, and for youth the basic problem in the society is concern with the type of life we have to live. We are all concerned about social justice. In response to this view, the youth nod their heads and rally to change the situation. Then the monopoly capitalists say: How can this problem be solved? And they propose self-cultivation – each person doing his own thing, changing self first and the world later – as the solution. So the youth become discouraged again.
The monopoly capitalist class tells the youth that it is good for them to get involved in production. But there are no jobs, they say. Therefore, the problem must be one of “leisure-time” and “self-fulfillment”.
For this reason the monopoly capitalist class concocts Opportunities for Youth Programmes and Local Initiative Projects. Just as during the 1960s the government allocated $100 million of government funds to finance the Company of Young Canadians, designed to use up the energy of the youth and deflect it away from revolution, so now, they are creating OFY programmes to keep the vocal youth off the labour market and off the streets, as well as indirectly stimulate the economy. Out of 45,000 summer positions created in 1971, one half were associated with the Department of Defence. During the summer of 1972, thousands of young people were given military and para-military training, as well as courses in “citizenship” to consolidate young people behind reactionary ideas and backward aspirations, and to leave as many young people as possible with feelings that there are lots of problems in this country and nothing can really be done about them. The conclusion drawn is that the youth should look after its “self” and leave the problems to “them” – the sell-out monopoly capitalist politicians.
Despite these attempts, Canada’s youth and students are rising in revolution, demanding fundamental change and urging active resistance to U.S.imperialism in Canada and Quebec. For this reason, the monopoly capitalist class has been unsuccessful in its attempt to build fascism in Canada and Quebec. All communist youth and students must work hard to win over large numbers of young people to the cause of anti-imperialism and proletarian revolution in Canada. The only way that youth and students can play a progressive role and bring about the downfall of their oppressors is by making the interests of the entire Canadian working class and oppressed people their own, by integrating with the working and oppressed people in their day-to-day and over-all struggle against U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism and showing full support and solidarity with the working and oppressed people of Asia, Africa and Latin America. In other words, youth and students must be thorough-going anti-imperialists on all fronts and be closely integrated with the broad masses of the people.